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"jã³ napot, pacã¡k" which,as somebody here must surely know, means "what's up, guys?" in magyar, that peculiar non-indo-europeanlanguage spoken by hungarians for which, given the factthat cognitive diversity is at least as threatenedas biodiversity on this planet, few would have imagined muchof a future even a century or two ago. but there it is: "jã³ napot, pacã¡k" i said somebody here mustsurely know, because despite the fact that there aren'tthat many hungarians to begin with,

and the further fact that, so faras i know, there's not a drop of hungarian blood in my veins,at every critical juncture of my life there has been a hungarian friendor mentor there beside me. i even have dreams that takeplace in landscapes i recognize as the landscapesof hungarian films, especially the earlymovies of miklos jancso. so, how do i explain thismysterious affinity? maybe it's because my nativestate of south carolina, which is not much smallerthan present-day hungary,

once imagined a future for itselfas an independent country. and as a consequence of that presumption, my hometown was burnedto the ground by an invading army, an experience that has befallenmany a hungarian town and village throughout its long and troubled history. or maybe it's because wheni was a teenager back in the '50s, my uncle henry -- havingdenounced the ku klux klan and been bombed for his troubleand had crosses burned in his yard, living under death threat -- took his wifeand children to massachusetts for safety

and went back to south carolinato face down the klan alone. that was a very hungarian thing to do, as anyone will attest who remembers 1956. and of course, from timeto time hungarians have inventedtheir own equivalent of the klan. well, it seems to me that thishungarian presence in my life is difficult to account for, but ultimatelyi ascribe it to an admiration for people with a complex moral awareness, with a heritage of guilt and defeatmatched by defiance and bravado.

it's not a typical mindsetfor most americans, but it is perforce typicalof virtually all hungarians. so, "jã³ napot, pacã¡k!" i went back to south carolinaafter some 15 years amid the alien corn at the tail end of the 1960s, with the recklesscondescension of that era thinking i would save my people. never mind the fact that they were slowto acknowledge they needed saving. i labored in that vineyardfor a quarter century before

making my way to a little kingdomof the just in upstate south carolina, a methodist-affiliated institutionof higher learning called wofford college. i knew nothing about wofford and even less about methodism, but i was reassured on the first daythat i taught at wofford college to find, among the auditorsin my classroom, a 90-year-old hungarian, surroundedby a bevy of middle-aged european women who seemed to functionas an entourage of rhinemaidens. his name was sandor teszler.

he was a puckish widowerwhose wife and children were dead and whose grandchildren lived far away. in appearance, he resembledmahatma gandhi, minus the loincloth,plus orthopedic boots. he had been born in 1903 in the provinces of the old austro-hungarian empire, in what later would become yugoslavia. he was ostracized as a child,not because he was a jew -- his parents weren't veryreligious anyhow --

but because he had been bornwith two club feet, a condition which, in those days,required institutionalization and a succession of painful operationsbetween the ages of one and 11. he went to the commercial businesshigh school as a young man in budapest, and therehe was as smart as he was modest and he enjoyed a considerable success.and after graduation when he went into textileengineering, the success continued. he built one plant after another. he married and had two sons. hehad friends in high places who

assured him that he was of greatvalue to the economy. once, as he had leftinstructions to have done, he was summoned in the middle of the nightby the night watchman at one of his plants. the night watchman had caughtan employee who was stealing socks -- it was a hosiery mill, and he simplybacked a truck up to the loading dock and was shoveling in mountains of socks. mr. teszler went down to the plantand confronted the thief and said, "but why do you steal from me? if youneed money you have only to ask." the night watchman, seeing how thingswere going and waxing indignant,

said, "well, we're going to callthe police, aren't we?" but mr. teszler answered, "no,that will not be necessary. he will not steal from us again." well, maybe he was too trusting,because he stayed where he was long after the nazi anschluss in austria and even after the arrestsand deportations began in budapest. he took the simple precaution of havingcyanide capsules placed in lockets that could be worn about the necksof himself and his family. and then one day, it happened:he and his family were arrested

and they were taken to a deathhouse on the danube. in those early days of the finalsolution, it was handcrafted brutality; people were beaten to deathand their bodies tossed into the river. but none who entered that deathhouse had ever come out alive. and in a twist you would not believein a steven spielberg film -- the gauleiter who was overseeing thisbrutal beating was the very same thief who had stolen socksfrom mr. teszler's hosiery mill. it was a brutal beating. andmidway through that brutality, one of mr. teszler's sons,andrew, looked up and said,

"is it time to takethe capsule now, papa?" and the gauleiter, who afterwardsvanishes from this story, leaned down and whisperedinto mr. teszler's ear, "no, do not take the capsule.help is on the way." and then resumed the beating. but help was on the way,and shortly afterwards a car arrived from the swiss embassy. they were spirited to safety. theywere reclassified as yugoslav citizens and they managed to stayone step ahead of their pursuers

for the duration of the war,surviving burnings and bombings and, at the end of the war,arrest by the soviets. probably, mr. teszler had gottensome money into swiss bank accounts because he managed to takehis family first to great britain, then to long island and then to the centerof the textile industry in the american south. which, as chance would have it,was spartanburg, south carolina, the location of wofford college. and there, mr. teszler began all over againand once again achieved immense success, especially after he invented the process

for manufacturing a newfabric called double-knit. and then in the late 1950s, in the aftermathof brown v. board of education, when the klan was resurgentall over the south, mr. teszler said, "i haveheard this talk before." and he called his topassistant to him and asked, "where would you say, in thisregion, racism is most virulent?" "well, i don't rightly know, mr. teszler.i reckon that would be kings mountain." "good. buy us some land in kings mountain and announce we are goingto build a major plant there."

the man did as he was told,and shortly afterwards, mr. teszler received a visitfrom the white mayor of kings mountain. now, you should know that at that time, the textile industry in the southwas notoriously segregated. the white mayor visitedmr. teszler and said, "mr. teszler, i trust you’re goingto be hiring a lot of white workers." mr. teszler told him, "you bring methe best workers that you can find, and if they are goodenough, i will hire them." he also received a visit from the leaderof the black community,

a minister, who said, "mr. teszler,i sure hope you're going to hire some black workersfor this new plant of yours." he got the same answer: "you bringthe best workers that you can find, as it happens, the black minister didhis job better than the white mayor, but that's neither here or there. mr. teszler hired 16 men:eight white, eight black. they were to be his seedgroup, his future foremen. he had installed the heavyequipment for his new process in an abandoned storein the vicinity of kings mountain,

and for two months these 16 menwould live and work together, mastering the new process. he gathered them togetherafter an initial tour of that facility and he asked if there were any questions. there was hemming and hawingand shuffling of feet, and then one of the white workersstepped forward and said, "well, yeah. we’ve looked at this placeand there's only one place to sleep, there's only one place to eat,there's only one bathroom, there's only one water fountain. is thisplant going to be integrated or what?"

mr. teszler said, "you are being paid twice the wagesof any other textile workers in this region and this is how we do business.do you have any other questions?" "no, i reckon i don't." and two months later whenthe main plant opened and hundreds of newworkers, white and black, poured in to see the facilityfor the first time, they were met by the 16 foremen, whiteand black, standing shoulder to shoulder. they toured the facility and were askedif there were any questions, and inevitably the same question arose:

"is this plant integrated or what?" and one of the white foremenstepped forward and said, "you are being paid twicethe wages of any other workers in this industry in this regionand this is how we do business. do you have any other questions?" and there were none. in one fell swoop, mr. teszler had integrated the textileindustry in that part of the south. it was an achievementworthy of mahatma gandhi, conducted with the shrewdness of a lawyerand the idealism of a saint.

in his eighties, mr. teszler, havingretired from the textile industry, adopted wofford college, auditing courses every semester, and because he had a tendencyto kiss anything that moved, becoming affectionately known as "opi"-- which is magyar for grandfather -- by all and sundry. before i gotthere, the library of the college had been named for mr. teszler,and after i arrived in 1993, the faculty decided to honor itself by namingmr. teszler professor of the college -- partly because at that pointhe had already taken

all of the courses in the catalog,but mainly because he was so conspicuouslywiser than any one of us. to me, it was immensely reassuringthat the presiding spirit of this little methodist collegein upstate south carolina was a holocaust survivorfrom central europe. wise he was, indeed, but he alsohad a wonderful sense of humor. and once for an interdisciplinary class, i was screening the opening segmentof ingmar bergman's "the seventh seal." as the medieval knight antonius blockreturns from the wild goose chase

of the crusades and arriveson the rocky shore of sweden, only to find the specterof death waiting for him, mr. teszler sat in the darkwith his fellow students. and as death opened his cloakto embrace the knight in a ghastly embrace, i heardmr. teszler's tremulous voice: "uh oh," he said, "this doesn'tlook so good." (laughter) but it was music that was his greatestpassion, especially opera. and on the first occasionthat i visited his house, he gave me honor of deciding what pieceof music we would listen to.

and i delighted him by rejecting"cavalleria rusticana" in favor of belabartok's "bluebeard's castle." i love bartok's music, as did mr. teszler, and he had virtually every recordingof bartok's music ever issued. and it was at his housethat i heard for the first time bartok's third pianoconcerto and learned from mr. teszler that it had been composedin nearby asheville, north carolina in the last year of the composer's life. he was dying of leukemia and he knew it,

and he dedicated thisconcerto to his wife, dita, who was herself a concert pianist. and into the slow, second movement,marked "adagio religioso," he incorporated the soundsof birdsong that he heard outside his window in what he knewwould be his last spring; he was imagining a future for herin which he would play no part. and clearly this compositionis his final statement to her -- it was first performed after his death -- and through her to the world.

and just as clearly, it is saying,"it's okay. it was all so beautiful. whenever you hear this, i will be there." it was only after mr. teszler's deaththat i learned that the marker on the grave of belabartok in hartsdale, new york was paid for by sandor teszler."j㳠napot, bela!" not long before mr. teszler’sown death at the age of 97, he heard me hold forth on human iniquity. i delivered a lecturein which i described history as, on the whole, a tidal waveof human suffering and brutality,

and mr. teszler came up to me afterwardswith gentle reproach and said, "you know, doctor, human beingsare fundamentally good." and i made a vowto myself, then and there, that if this man who had suchcause to think otherwise had reached that conclusion, i would not presume to differuntil he released me from my vow. and now he's dead, soi'm stuck with my vow. "jã³ napot, sandor!" i thought my skein of hungarianmentors had come to an end,

but almost immediately i met francisrobicsek, a hungarian doctor -- actually a heart surgeon in charlotte, northcarolina, then in his late seventies -- who had been a pioneerin open-heart surgery, and, tinkering awayin his garage behind his house, had invented many of the devicesthat are standard parts of those procedures. he's also a prodigious art collector,beginning as an intern in budapest by collecting 16th- and 17th-centurydutch art and hungarian painting, and when he came to this countrymoving on to spanish colonial art, russian icons and finally mayan ceramics.

he's the author of seven books,six of them on mayan ceramics. it was he who broke the mayancodex, enabling scholars to relate the pictographs on mayan ceramicsto the hieroglyphs of the mayan script. on the occasion of my firstvisit, we toured his house and we saw hundredsof works of museum quality, and then we paused in front of a closeddoor and dr. robicsek said, with obvious pride, "nowfor the piece de resistance." and he opened the doorand we walked into a windowless 20-by-20-foot roomwith shelves from floor to ceiling, and

crammed on every shelfhis collection of mayan ceramics. now, i know absolutely nothingabout mayan ceramics, but i wanted to be as ingratiatingas possible so i said, "but dr. robicsek, thisis absolutely dazzling." "yes," he said. "thatis what the louvre said. they would not leave me aloneuntil i let them have a piece, but it was not a good one." (laughter) well, it occurred to methat i should invite dr. robicsek to lecture at woffordcollege on -- what else?

-- leonardo da vinci. and further,i should invite him to meet my oldest trustee, who had majoredin french history at yale some 70-odd years before and,at 89, still ruled the world's largest privately owned textileempire with an iron hand. his name is roger milliken.and mr. milliken agreed, and dr. robicsek agreed.and dr. robicsek visited and delivered the lectureand it was a dazzling success. and afterwards we convenedat the president's house with dr. robicsek on one hand, mr. milliken on the other.

and it was only at that moment,as we were sitting down to dinner, that i recognized the enormityof the risk i had created, because to bring these two titans,these two masters of the universe together -- it was like introducing mothrato godzilla over the skyline of tokyo. if they didn't like each other,we could all get trampled to death. but they did, they did like each other. they got along famouslyuntil the very end of the meal, and then they got into a furious argument. and what they were arguing about was this:

whether the second harry potter moviewas as good as the first. (laughter) mr. milliken said it was not.dr. robicsek disagreed. i was still trying to takein the notion that these titans, these masters of the universe, in their sparetime watch harry potter movies, when mr. milliken thoughthe would win the argument by saying, "you just think it's so goodbecause you didn't read the book." and dr. robicsek reeled back in his chair,but quickly gathered his wits, leaned forward and said, "well,that is true, but i'll bet you went to the movie with a grandchild." "well,yes, i did," conceded mr. milliken.

"aha!" said dr. robicsek. "i went to the movieall by myself." (laughter) (applause) and i realized, in thismoment of revelation, that what these two men wererevealing was the secret of their extraordinary success,each in his own right. and it lay preciselyin that insatiable curiosity, that irrepressible desire to know,no matter what the subject, no matter what the cost, even at a time when the keepersof the doomsday clock are willing to bet even moneythat the human race won't be around

to imagine anything in the year2100, a scant 93 years from now. "live each day as if itis your last," said mahatma gandhi. "learn as if you'll live forever." this is what i'm passionate about.it is precisely this. it is this inextinguishable, undauntedappetite for learning and experience, no matter how risible,no matter how esoteric, no matter how seditious it might seem. this defines the imagined futuresof our fellow hungarians -- robicsek, teszler and bartok-- as it does my own.

as it does, i suspect,that of everybody here. to which i need only add, "eza mi munkank; es nem is keves." this is our task; we know it will be hard. "ez a mi munkank; es nem is keves.jã³ napot, pacã¡k!" (applause)

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